Update Your Track Training to Get Stronger & Faster in 2021

We have now officially made it to 2021. Farewell, 2020.

With the new year, comes new track goals. There are new distances to jump to, personal bests to beat, and championships to win. Achieving these goals will take focus, grit, and determination.

As you run, throw, jump, and hurdle your way into the New Year, we have 5 pieces of advice to make 2021 your best year for track and field.

1. Pick a Target & Strategize

Strategic thinking and planning are what turns dreams into reality. To effectively plan your track training, you must first pick quantifiable goals. Don’t say that “you want to win three gold medals” or “qualify for the State meet.”

Make your goal something that you can measure and evaluate.

For example, “I want to run sub 2 minutes in the 800m” or “I want to jump 19’+ in long jump.” By picking a concrete goal, you will be able to evaluate your progress month to month. Most importantly, you will be able to channel your energy, focus, and training towards that goal.

Once you’ve decided on your specific goal, you need to evaluate where you are. If you have the facilities, time yourself running the distance you plan on working on in 2021.

Also measure other metrics, like broad jump, vertical jump, squat max, bench press max, mile time, etc. For sprinters, you may want to time your 30-meter fly.

If you don’t have the means to time yourself or do lifting tests, you can still evaluate your starting metrics. You should be able measure vertical jumps, broad jumps, push up max, etc. all at home.

These metrics will help you determine where you are physically. As you train, these metrics will help you evaluate what you have improved and how you should adjust your training.

2. Address Your Weak Points

They say that a team is only as strong as its weakest link. This concept can be applied to your body. You will only be as fast, strong, or powerful as the weakest muscle group that you use for your event.

Therefore, make sure to do workouts that target small, specialized muscles. Muscles surrounding the ankles, muscles in the soles of the feet, muscles in the wrist/palm, and in the lower back often do not get enough attention. Adding exercises that focus on strengthening these muscles will help develop fine movements that will make a huge difference in competition.

In addition to strengthening weaker muscles, you need to keep your dominant muscles healthy. Injuries in the quad, hamstrings, and glutes can often go unnoticed until the damage is serious because of how strong these muscles are. Take care to massage, roll out, ice, or regularly stretch these muscles. Also spend time improving the flexibility of muscles that are often tight or overused.

You do not want to be pulling your hamstring midway through competition. So, make time to regularly stretch and treat muscles when you train.

3. Active Rest Days

Now that you have a game plan, it’s time to train. As you train, it is critical that you allow your body to have enough time for rest. Include at least 1 rest day in your weekly training schedule.

However, rest days don’t mean you sit on the couch and do nothing. Rest days should be active.

An active rest day involves a low-impact workout that gets the blood flowing and speeds up muscle recovery for your event. Active recovery allows your muscles to heal, prevents overuse injuries, minimizes lactic acid build up, and helps increase your performance. Doing low-impact exercises that are different from your typical training will also allow you to improve mobility and flexibility.

For runners, jumpers, and throwers, good active rest options including hiking, biking, yoga, and slow jogs.

4. Add Weights to Your Strength Training

If you want to break school records, set new personal bests, and win championships in 2021, you will need increased muscle power. Whether you are a sprinter working on your block start or a distance runner looking to improve the last leg of their race, you will want to incorporate regular strength training with weights in your training routine.

Incorporating weights into your strength training will allow you to focus on developing quick muscle movements with more force. Explosive reps with heavy weights will force you to expend a lot of energy over a short period of time. This will increase how quickly your recruit motor units, improve your reaction time, and develop greater muscle resilience.

To get these benefits, you can do workouts that incorporate explosive, weighted movements, like Olympic lifting, powerlifting, weighted medicine ball workouts, kettlebell workouts, etc.

Barbell w/weights

Olympic lifting, in particular, is a type of lift that has a strong correlation to athletic performance. The explosiveness of these lifts increases an athlete’s speed and power.

In addition to power and strength development, strength training will also help prevent injuries that may occur form weak muscles, tendons, or ligaments. To improve your running performance, try to incorporate strength training at least 2 – 3 times a week for optimal results.

5. Sleep

Our last piece of advice is to sleep.

Sleep is essential for athletic performance. When you sleep, the body repairs itself. This allows muscles, ligaments, and tendons that have been strained during training to heal. During this recovery period, naturally produced hormones and proteins, like prolactin and HGH are secreted into the body. Nutrients like oxygen are also supplied to the muscle process.

Quality sleep is associated with greater muscle strength, while getting a limited sleep may be a risk factor for decreased muscle strength.

In order to make sure your muscle undergoes a complete healing process, regularly get 7 - 9 hours of sleep.